Why is it that when regular every day working people, who work for an extremely profitable company, try to simply RETAIN THE SAME THINGS they currently have, they are called things like greedy and entitled, yet when a CEO who makes $18 million annually, gets free platinum health care, gets free Verizon services, flies around on a corporate jet, gets 18-20% raises and upon retirement gets to keep all of that in addition to getting a huge sum of money through a golden parachute, no one seems to rally, protest or demand that the CEO take some type of cuts in compensation?
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OP, while I will try and give an honest dissenting response to your question, I fear this board is just a sound off for those that like to see how others react to their obscene and low class ramblings from both the union and management side. Neither one are wholly good nor evil, but actually two sides of the same coin. Each are a business that strive to produce a profit.
Yes the leaders of the company are well paid, and IMO deservedly so. It is easy to criticize the work they do and their compensation when you really have no idea what their job entails. No different than someone in IT claiming a field techs job is easy or vica versa. It is easy to be responsible for your own actions, and have the ability to walk away if things get too rough or leave the responsibility at someone else's feet. Try and imagine that there is no one else to go to, and the decisions that you have to make hold billions of dollars and/or thousands of jobs in the balance. Do you really think that the leadership is sitting in a room somewhere wringing their hands wanting to lay people off? If you have ever had to let someone go, you would understand. I have, and it is one of the worst things to have to go through. It litterly make sure you physically sick (that is just being human). And as bad as you feel, you know that the one who just lost their job is feeling even worse. Most people do not cherish or want to be the cause of someone else's misfortune. Now imagine, that number multiplied by thousands. I am quite sure those leaders have everyone whose jobs they were responsible for cutting on their conscience on a daily basis, but they made those decisions to ensure the company remains profitable and that 10's of thousands of others keep their jobs. To even suggest that they do this for thrills or to line their pockets indicates a very low IQ and/or a very sick and troubled mind, bordering on psycopathic.
As for the differences in compensation, as has been posted here many times the figure is somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 million (and yes that is a lot of money), but do the math and the compensation for the workers makes this number small by comparison. Including wages, benefits, etc., the average associate costs the company about 100k each (and I am not saying this is undeserved, because it's not. Everyone works hard for their money and it is well deserved), but $100k times 39,000 is $3.9 billion. Adding in the other 100 thousand employees, increases that number dramatically into the tens of billions, so even if you were to deduct all of the leaderships salary, it would be only a very small fraction of the overall wage costs.
While I do not expect you and I to agree on if the leadership deserves their compensations or not, but you asked and this is simply my opinion.
@1mts..........but Lowell, can you please spare just a piece of cheese? I'm starving, don't make me have to feed on a scab.
Quit coveting the CEOs salary and exert yourself in bettering your future financially versus living in an entitlement dream world where you expect that your archaic contribution from 20 years ago warrants you owning part of the company. No one owes you anything. Welcome to the real world. Stop living in the fantasy that your Union propaganda sells.
It was a great job for many years, but now the company has been taken over by some unenlightened dbags. Verizon has become a sh*tty company. For customers as well as employees.
So good luck with your go90 and all your other jive bullsh*t. Hope it was worth it to screw your country and your customers and make your employees hate you.
The idiots that think CEOs deserve 10-digit compensation packages are just digging their own trenches. And one day the CEOs and their private storm troopers will lead them to those trenches and their world as they know it will end. No job. No income. No family. No home. No hope.
History does repeat itself .... over and over ...
Unions are your last hope
@GYyZuDS-1mxk OP is asking a question. Then a bunch of people answered the question. It is that simple. If you couldn't accept those negative answers, just simply don't ask.
What a sorry bunch of responses. "All CEO's make that much, Unions are greedy, get over it." When are those of you making such dumb remarks going to realize that we are the only country on the planet where CEO's and their cronies make 200-400 times the average employee wage. Do you people want to see the U.S. crumble? I put out this post hoping to possibly get a intelligent theory as to why as a nation we keep getting screwed. The answer I got is that not only do we like getting screwed personally, but we enjoy it even more when the other little guy gets screwed as well. If the rest of the country thinks like most on this board, God help us all.
@GYyZuDS-1hta Union workers have limited skillset that focus on one or very few tasks. It leave them very vulnerable rapid technology changes. Because of this, they fearful that they will become obsolete. Take a look at the auto industrial. Automation reduced hundreds thousands of manual workers, which the auto union were trying to protect. One such scenario, you have tenured union member sitting at break room playing cards, because their contract prohibit them from being fired -layed off, yet their skillset is useless. Tell me who is greedy now. Furthermore, Telecom union members haven't improved their skills while technologies have raised past them. You are obsolete.
You need a shareholder revolt. Look what happened to this Robber Baron:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-08/bp-shareholder-to-oppose-insensitive-pay-increase-for-ceo
Enough this is the layoff board not post-colonial theory.
But If you though czw was racist, you should go back several pages to see the very ugly comments posted by the management employees while they were getting laid off!
CZW is mr. diversity 2016 compared to that!
dividing people by their race is the strategy of the corporate elite.
it keeps people distracted from the predatory behavior of the 1%
in any case, not everyone living in America with white skin are descended from the original settlers, in fact most are not. it is kind of racist of you to assume that they are.
Nor is America the only nation with a history of racism, in fact even the Chinese for example have a history of anti-european and anti-black racism.
maybe you need to learn some history yourself.
@GYyZuDS-aln Your comprehensive ability is very sad. American workers including unions and non-unions. I say unions greedy and I won't apologize for speaking truth.
@GYyZuDS-gmb Go back to learn the American History again. Where do you guys originally come from? Since your ancester kill almost all of the Native people, you tell me.
now will you apologize for calling the American worker greedy?
ABC.....IDK already been chewed?
My apologies, please cancel my order of chicken vindaloo if it gives offense. It was stupid to assume what nation you come from based on what you typed. For the record though, making jokes about someone's nation of origin is not the same thing as racism. India is a nation not a race.
@GYyZuDS-sav Let's make it clear. I am an ABC. If you don't know what ABC means, please google it. So, end of story.
The point was not to be racist, the point is don't come to a new country where you have not spent your life and think that you know all about what is going on. I wouldn't go to your country and lecture you.
I like chicken vindaloo why is that racist?
First I am greedy now I am racist.
Maybe it is your beloved CEO who is greedy and racist, exploiting people wherever he can.
@GYyZuDS-czw You are so racist. You shouldn't join Union. You should find a better place in Three K.
QUX is confused with Chef Boyardee
but he didn't get a raise this year?
ok guys easy with the mom jokes now.
@mgw can I get a chicken vindaloo please?
@GYyZuDS-vki What a low-life creature you are! If my mom is greedy, your mommy is greedy too. Maybe worse.
Your mom is greedy
PO. Not only Lowell, tons of CEO make million a year every year. Are you still living in stone age? You say Verizon is greedy. You union is greedy too.
The ceo deserves it. He wasnt just appointed to the job by some other rich entitled person who came before him. He worked his way up from the bottom working like a dog for your yeats ,mostly on his own time without pay. And besides this isnt a public utility that was around for a 100 years before he was born. verizon is a family owned business that his family built from the ground up. So shut up a be glad you got a job. Who cares if you work hard or even fought for this country. Just be glad somebody lets you bust your assevery day so you can eat. This is america a job is a luxury !!!!!!!!
Completely agree! CEOs make a lot of money. Period! Get over it!
Times have changed in wireline at Verizon. You all are not victims, so thinking you are entitled to everything just because you stomp your feet and yell at cars passing by to honk at you (or give you the finger, which I see happening a lot) does not give you rights to anything! Your job is a privilege and a contract between you and the company. If you don't like what the company is giving you for your services, then find something else, and quit complaining that the CEO is not one of your peers.
The far left, the liberals, the democrats, and yes, the UNIONS...they are the ones destroying this nation. Become part of the solution and quit your moaning and complaining. Nobody cares!
Oh my God. Stop complaining how much your CEO makes. It is in line with every other wall street CEO. Your union should be fighting for retraining people and growth in the jobs of tomorrow. You WANT to work for a profitable company!
How would anyone in any other company or industry feel if their leadership said sorry we half to cut cut cut cut benefits pay retirement as they brag to wall street how fantastic and bright their future is. How wealthy they are raises for the few that have made some of the worse corporate decisions in recent memory. Put yourselves in our position agreeing to this last best offer would be an insult contrary to some of the posters here, some of who are learning as we speak, this is a very difficult job physically and mentally. If we cave to their demands this will directly effect every American worker in this country.
@GYyZuDS ... a CEO that has the exact opposite of the Midas Touch. Lowell has the touch of sh^t, in that everything that he touches turns to sh^t! Someone posted that lowell is like a hollywood CEO, and that is right on the money, complete empty suit.